This does depend on Chris Bosh staying up north for the duration of the season, but teamed with Jose Calderon, newly signed Hedo Turkoglu, and top draft choice DeMar DeRozan, the Raptors should not only return to the playoffs, they should be hosting a first-round series.
Early success for the Raptors means they’re more likely to ride out the season knowing Bosh will become a free agent.
He’s been in the league for 4 years already, but since he’s still just 22, it’s okay to call Amir Johnson a prospect. Amir has flashed plenty of potential in the past, but his numbers regressed last season in nearly every category. Perhaps the worst sign was that he committed a career-high 6.8 fouls per 36 minutes, struggling to stay on the court. Most raw big men commit a ton of fouls when they first come into the league, but their foul rate usually declines after a few seasons. Amir’s hasn’t, so that’s a legit concern. On the other hand, the Pistons did him no favors offensively by playing at such a slow tempo (Detroit was 29th in pace factor last season). Johnson could possibly excel in an uptempo system where he gets to block shots (3.1 rejections per 36 minutes for his career) and run the floor for easy buckets (57.7% FG for his career), as demonstrated in the video below. The playing time won’t be there right away, but definitely keep an eye on him of you need blocks.
Q: What song will they use for the intro music?
A: I Got A Feeling – Black Eyed Peas is the cheesy option. And we all know the ACC guys are prone to cheesiness.
Maybe Chris Bosh can hook something up – He wants into the music industry, the Raptors want him to stay…hmmmm, let’s just say they should work out a deal.
I don’t really care for most of the arena entertainment during the game, but I think the intro video is an underrated factor in pumping up the crowd.
The Oct. 28 opener against the new-look Cavs at the Air Canada Centre will air on TSN2, one of 50 Raptors games that the all-sports cable network TSN will televise – 27 of them on TSN2.
For the fourth consecutive season, all 82 regular-season games will be broadcast in high definition and televised across Canada.
TSN will also carry the conference finals and some playoff games, coverage of NBA all-star weekend, and exclusive Canadian coverage of the NBA finals.
The Score will air 20 Raptors games beginning with a Nov. 7 game at Dallas.
CBC will feature 10 games, including eight Sunday afternoon matchups, beginning Nov. 1 with a Toronto visit from Dwight Howard, former Raptor Vince Carter and the defending Eastern Conference champion Orlando Magic.
CBC’s schedule also includes Toronto’s game Nov. 29 against Canada’s Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns.
Raptors TV has two games in the 2009-10 season – Nov. 9 against the San Antonio Spurs and March 28 versus the Miami Heat.
Brothersteve’s Green & Red Raptor Blog
DeRozan is unquestionably an amazing athlete who just happens to already have a good mid-range offensive game and decent rebounding numbers, but he has just turned 20 years old and only has 1 year of college ball.
Some more conservative thoughts (Draft Express.com) have suggested DeRozan’s prospects are more likely to be somewhere between Rodney Carney and Josh Howard.
Why not take a look at how some of these “similar” players looked like as they were leaving college and draw some conclusions of our own?
My second scouting report. This time it’s Andrea Bargnani. I won’t do many of these since there are so many new faces, I would like to watch the newcomers for a while before writing scouting reports.
